Hampson's Masterpiece: The Snow Queen

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Scottish Ballet The Snow Queen Theatre Royal, Glasgow, 11 Jan 2020

I have been following the company now known as Scottish Ballet for nearly 60 years. The first ballet of theirs I can remember is Peter Darrell's Mods and Rockers which was quite unlike any ballet that I had ever seen before. It has staged some great works since such as Darrell's version of The Nutcracker, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa A Streetcar Named Desire, Christopher Hampson's Cinderella and David Dawson's Swan Lake. However, as I tweeted immediately after seeing the show, The Snow Queen is its creator's best work yet and one of the company's best ever,

@HampsonChris, great to run into you at @GlasgowKings yesterday. Congratulations to you, the cast, creatives and all at @scottishballet on #SBSnowQueen. I think this is your best work yet and one of the company's finest ever. Already a fan of Wraith, Loudon, Horler & now Addison.

— Terpsichore (@jelterps) January 12, 2020

The ballet is based loosely on Hans Christian Andersen's tale. Hampson inserts a prologue to explain the Snow Queen's meanness. That is permissible just as the spurning of her stepsister's flowers in Christopher Wheeldon's Cinderella is permissible to explain the girls' dislike of Cinderella.   The score is an arrangement of Rimsky Korsakov by Richard Honner. The designs which were breathtaking were created by Lez Brotherson. A work by Brotherson, Hampson and Honner could hardly fail and I had high hopes for it but it exceeded my expectations greatly.

Hampson's libretto creates three big female roles as well as some interesting supporting ones.  There is the Snow Queen herself who features strongly at the start and end.  Her sister is the Summer Princess.  While the siblings live together, all is harmony but when the Summer Princess sets off to explore the world the personality of the Snow Queen changes.  She becomes disorientated, resentful and vindictive.  Her sister disguises herself and calls herself Lexi as she scours the world for Kai.  Her rival for his affection is Gerda.  Kai is the lead male role but there are also solo roles for the men such as the ringmaster, strong man, clowns and bandit leader as well as bandits and townsfolk for male members of the corps. 

The Snow Queen was danced by guest artist, Katlyn Addison, a first soloist with the American Ballet West which is based in Salt Lake City, Utah and not to be confused with the school and company of the same name at Taynuilt in Argyll.  The Summer Princess or Lexi was danced by Grace Horler. and Gerda by Araminta Wraith.  Horler and Wraith I had seen before and were already favourites of mine. Particularly Wraith who had impressed me in character roles such as Cinderella's stepmother and Hansel and Gretel's mum as well as for her classical technique in what I think must have been The Nutcracker not too long after she had joined the company.  This was the first time I had seen Addison and I sincerely hope it will not be the last.  I have made a mental note to include Salt Lake City in my itinerary for a future holiday in America. 

Kai was danced by Evan Loudon who first impressed me in the Emergence and MC 14/22 double bill at Sadler's Wells in 2017.  Kai is a complex character combining the most attractive masculine attributes with the most infuriating.  An accomplished dance actor, Loudon discharged that role with flair.  Other dancers I noted immediately after the performance include Nicolas Shoesmith who was the ringmaster and Rimbaud Patron as the bandit leader.  All danced well and all are to be congratulated.   So, too, are the orchestra and their conductor Jean-Claude Picard. 

 The Scots have an onomatopoeic adjective for miserable weather - dreich.  The evening of 11 Jan was as dreich a night in Glasgow as ever there could be.  The thunderous applause from an audience that had already been drenched to the skin and chilled to the bone says it all.

Hampson's Cinderella: Coming up Roses

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Scottish Ballet Cinderella  Theatre Royal, Newcastle, 1 Feb 2019

I first saw Christopher Hampson's Cinderella in Edinburgh on 19 Dec 2015 and I loved it  (see Scottish Ballet's Cinderella 20 Dec 2015). I saw it again in Newcastle on Friday and loved it all the more.  I have been asking myself why I love it so much.  I think it is because it is multilayered.  Very different from the pantomimes and films of childhood.

At one layer there is the narrative.  The libretto is conventional enough but, to get a better idea of the theme, watch the video, Designing Cinderella.  Hampson and his designer, Tracy Grant Lord. explain the significance of the rose.  That is the second layer.  Roses are even more important than glass slippers because Cinders's slipper is discovered and shredded.  "How is the prince to authenticate his bride?" the audience wonders as the rest of womankind force their hooves and flippers into the discarded shoe.  Happily, Cinderella had another memento of the evening, namely the silver rose that the prince had given her at the ball.  She produced that rose and all was well.  Roses are everywhere. In the backdrop, the clothes and of course the cemetery where Cinderella's mum is buried.

But there is a layer below the roses and I think that it explains why the ballet appeals so much to me.  Hampson's ballet is a study of emotion.  After the death of his first wife, Cinderella's father seeks solace in a second marriage but it fails to work.  Cinderella is a constant reminder.  He takes to drink incurring the contempt of his stepchildren and the despair of his new wife.  Reason enough to explain her resentment of Cinderella.

In most interpretations of the story, Cinderella is a victim. Not so much in this ballet,  Not even as a scullery maid,  She is resourceful.  She has the cash for her mother's portrait which the stepmother is desperate to remove  She can dance in contrast to her stepsisters' stumblings. Even her work clothes eclipse her stepsisters' finery. The prince for all his wealth and power is lonely.  It is Cinderella who rescues him from his loneliness at least as much as he rescues her from her servitude.

Such complex characters are difficult to portray.  When I saw the show in Edinburgh I was enchanted by Bethany Kingsley-Garner and Christopher Harrison.  They were so good I had to see them in those roles a second time. Kingsley-Garner commands a stage like few others.  An actress as much as a dancer and she is a dancer of considerable strength and virtuosity.  Hampson demands a lot from his Cinderellas such as successions of relevés combined with dévelopés and his trade mark backwards jump.  Delightful to watch but probably exhausting to perform.  Another favourite, Araminta Wraith, danced Cinderella's stepmother.  She is also a fine communicator.  She helped me understand and sympathize with her character better than I had ever done before. Nicholas Shoesmith portrayed Cinderella's broken father with pathos.  Claire Souet and Aisling Brangan the ridiculous stepsisters with bathos. Grace Horler charmed us as the fairy godmother.

In my estimation, Hampson is the best narrative ballet choreographer that we have,   He may be less prolific in this genre than other choreographers but everything he produces is good,  Next year he will present The Snow Queen to mark the 50th anniversary of the company's move from Bristol.  With music by Rimsky-Korsakov and designs by Lez Brotherston, it should be splendid.

Hansel and Gretel in Newcastle - a bit like falling in love

Theatre Royal Newcastle

Author Gita Mistry
(c) 2017 Gita Mistry: all rights reserved

Scottish Ballet, Hansel and Gretel, Theatre Royal Newcastle, 3 Feb 2017

Ballet can be a bit like falling in love. Once in a while, you see a show that stands out.   You leave the theatre floating on a cloud.  You can't quite put your finger on why, especially if you have seen the ballet before, but somehow it is special.  That was how I felt last night after watching Scottish Ballet's Hansel and Gretel at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle.  I had seen Hansel and Gretel before in Glasgow on 21 Dec 2013 and had enjoyed it then (see Scottish Ballet's Hansel and Gretel 23 Dec 2016), but I loved last night's show so much more.

As the show has not yet been to London or, to the best of my knowledge and belief performed abroad by any other company, I shall describe it briefly for my readers. The story follows loosely the fairy tale as retold by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm but with some twists and refinements.  It is set not in medieval Germany but in a small Scottish town near a forest - Dunkeld perhaps or maybe Aberfeldy - in the nineteen fifties or sixties.  The period is set by the costumes.  Little girls in gym slips. The boys in short trousers,  The mums in headscarves and the dads in flat caps. Local toughs in denim jeans and leather jackets. An enormous fridge in a corner of Hansel and Gretel's home - entirely bare except for cans of lager - some basic furniture and a massive telly.

Why did Christopher Hampson set his ballet in post-war Scotland which was well before his time let alone that of most of his audience? Part of the answer may be that Scottish Ballet and indeed Western Theatre Ballet before it has always been topical.  A tradition started by its founder Peter Darrell who staged the marvellous Mods and Rockers to Beatles music in 1963. The story begins with child abductions which of course is the subject of historical child abuse investigations and trials that were taking place in 2013 when Hansel and Gretel first appeared and, unfortunately, are still continuing today.

Hansel and Gretel are kept away from school until those abductions end.  Not surprisingly, they get bored with each other's company.  They slip away while their parents doze in from of the TV, first into the town and then the woods where eventually they find the witch's cottage.  Everything else follows the Grimms' story. They enter the cottage and find a table heaving with food with dancing chefs who come out from below.  The witch plies the kids with goodies, but then things start to go wrong. She chops off the head of Hänsel's teddy. She forces the children to play a game of hide and seek which ends with Hänsel finding himself in a cage under the table. Her malevolence becomes clear when she tosses the remains of the teddy into a cupboard overflowing with children's toys including two enormous rag dolls danced by Andrew Peasgood and Madeline Squire.

Happily, the story ends well - or fairly well for I can't be the only one who would prefer to see the witch in the dock than in the Aga - but at least the children (including those abducted in the prologue) are saved and reunited with their parents. A pile of bones reminds us not to feel too sorry for the witch who maybe had what was coming to her. Hänsel and Gretel are hoisted on the adults' shoulders and the children and parents parade triumphantly around the witch's kitchen.

The score is essentially Engelbert Humperdinck's as arranged by Richard Honner. The sets are by Gary Harris.  There are two excellent videos in which each member of the creative team explains how they brought the show together (see Scottish Ballet: The Making of Hansel & Gretel (Part One) and (Part Two).  Masestro Honner conducted the orchestra last night.

As I noted three years ago, there are some really juicy roles in this ballet. Hänsel and Gretel, of course, with Gretel taking the initiative but her impetuous brother the glory.  After all, it was he who kicked the old woman into the oven.  Yesterday Hänsel was danced by Constant Vigier (an up and coming choreographer as well as first artist with the company) and Kayla-Maree Tarantolo who trained in Amsterdam.  Gita likes to award "man" or "woman of the match" accolades to dancers as though they were cricketers. Her woman of the match was Tarantolo. I heard Gita giggling as the wide-eyed children gobbled the sweets or the witch hobbled about her kitchen. Now Gita just doesn't usually laugh in ballet but she was having a great time in this one.  "I am really enjoying it" she mouthed to me several times.

 Probably the most demanding role in the ballet is the witch because she mixes so many roles.  As I said in  2013 the teacher morphs into the local vamp, the ballerina in the moon and finally a wicked and twisted, ugly old witch. In The Making of Hansel and Gretel  Hampson says that he created that role for Eve Mutso who is a splendid dancer. Difficult shoes to fill but Grace Horler rose to the challenge and performed that role brilliantly. Indeed, she made it her own. The antithesis of the witch is, of course, the good fairy - in this case the Dew Drop Fairy - and she was danced delightfully by Claire Souet. Hansel and Gretel's mum and dad were danced by two of my favourites, Araminta Wraith and Christopher Harrison. They also have to morph from the everyday into the sublime as the children imagine them in evening dress dancing in high society. There is a sleek and sinister sandman danced by Peasgood last night and, of course, the menacing ravens - Rimbaud PatronHenry Dowden, Thomas Edwards, Eado Turgeman and  Evan Loudon.

Hampson is a great hero of mine as I have repeated many times in this blog. I had heard him speak at Northern Ballet's symposium on narrative dance (see My Thoughts on Saturday Afternoon's Panel Discussion at Northern Ballet 21 June 2015) but until last night I had never actually met him. Gita bumped into him in the theatre lobby and, knowing my admiration for the man, held him in conversation until I appeared. However eloquent my reviews (if indeed they are) and tweets, there is nothing like telling the choreographer in person how much one enjoys his work. Especially after an outstanding performance like last night's.